Time for a rant.

It is unfortunate that this blog post will go almost unread on the interwebs, but as the history of this great institution of online communication has shown me, that's hardly to the point now, is it?

So, McCain. A war hero. A patriot. A veteran. Gotta say, the man has the political chops needed to convince just about any American that he is worth voting for. I mean, what could make for a better leader? Especially in a country so devoid of understanding of its own military history that romantic militarism isn't just a problem, its THE problem. "He understands our world is dangerous":



Isn't this beautiful? Can't you see the craftsmanship that has gone into this particular piece of political garbage?

Now, don't let me put you offside and get words unceremoniously shoved into my mouth. He was a victim of one of the more horrible places to be in the world: a POW camp. The place on this earth that hasn't got "Geneva" in the dictionary. And that makes him a remarkable spirit, make no mistake. I'm a bit miffed in the above ad as to why voluntary imprisonment through denial of early release counts as an honourable, American thing to do. "Sure, I'll stay in for another round of solitary!" Wow, shows the guy definitely is canny. That'll show em. I think?

Back to my point, the juxtaposition of the war against the "summer of love" is a masterpiece of spin. Of course, while the hippies were out taking drugs and banging each other senseless in an unchristian show of prurient, lustful action, John McCain was out fighting for your freedom. But wait, wasn't part of this strange lefty movement a protest against your unjust war? And if that's the case, then every thing McCain says is up for question, isn't it? Well, unless you are a conservative, military realist. So I suppose its all okay, right?

But that wasn't what got me into this rantin' mood. Well, if I'm going to be honest, my recent Bill Hicks pilgrimage may have something to do with it, and it is terribly unfortunate that I'll never have the skills in dark poetry and satire that Bill did. But while reading this post in (to my mind) the quite respectable Framing Science Blog by Dr. Matt Nisbet, I came across this:



Isn't this great? Gotta love them always honest, considerate American politicians. I'm so ignorant! Of course the only solution to the oil crisis in America in a world with dwindling supplies of this natural resources is to invest even more money in creating an entirely new site where we can dig up the planet and kill a whole bunch of land, using a resource that is going to run out very soon! Wow! Thanks John McCain, for enlightening me. As for Obama, well, the fact that he won't endorse the offshore drilling projects or new oilfields is obviously because he has absolutely no policy on energy!

Or maybe, because he isn't on the payroll of the oil industry.

To at least try to introduce some ethics into this diatribe, consider the very basic ethical problem we encounter when the money of lobby groups impacts in such a way so as to not educate the public on the issues at stake in their voting, but instead lead to lead to what Nisbet refers to as "playing fast and loose with the truth" in order to fulfill the preferences of the said lobbyists. Truth, Justice and the American way indeed.

Bad Science for the masses

So the SMH, in all its scientific integrity, reported on pot smokers being not so mellow. The venerable Kate Benson, medical reporter, writes:

More than a third of people who present at Sydney emergency departments after smoking cannabis are violent and half have mental health problems such as severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts, shattering the image that dope smokers are relaxed and sleepy, researchers have found.

Wow, my impressions are certainly shattered. Who would have thought that out of the (no doubt) hundreds of thousands of pot smokers in my country alone, that the ones who ended up in an emergency room were representative of all of them? And further, that the pot smokers who ended up in emergency were likely to be somewhat distressed? I mean, its not like from my visits to emergency (not many of them involving me as a patient, thankfully) I don't see angry, upset or violent people in emergency. This presentation of the study reeks of, among other things, a massive problem with their attribution of causation, and a sampling problem. But, I'm sure that the SMH hoped they could pass it off on the unwitting masses and "do some good"

If the levels of THC in hydroponic gardens are that high, that's a danger, and it may be leading to an increase in psychotic drug users. But I don't think any myths have been shattered here.

I'm wondering if this is the University of New South Wales' bad science, or the SMH's lousy reporting. I'm hoping it is the latter.

Wild speculation

So, I was reading this article in the Sydney Morning Hearld yesterday, and began thinking about Nozick's Experience Machine (as one does).

The computer game industry is fast becoming a defining element of our world. Unbelievable amounts of effort, talent and creativity, not to mention money are poured into this field year after year to satisfy an increasingly widespread demographic of our population. Unfortunately, marketing being as it is, games are fast becoming required to be more and more consuming of the user's resources in order to maintain dominance over the hearts, minds and wallets of the client base. This is not to mention that due to the intensely interactive nature of games today, art no longer imitates life so much as it leads to its creation (seriously, hang out on the Internet for more than about an hour and you will discover entire languages. Forget antrhropology in the world, far stranger cultures exist online). However, I can't help but be concerned by the levels of immersiveness being implied by the article. While Nozick's argument was designed as a refutation of hedonism, as I understand it, I think that it speaks to something else, which is a questioning of the fantastic as a dominant force in a person's life. What does it mean when a former recreational activity can be integrate and come to dominate someone's life, providing pleasure, but consuming substantial resources and creating social interactions which, while genuine, are weaker than those formed in the corporeal world due to the removal of some of the basic risks of the social world? When fun turns into duty (and if anyone out there has a friend who plays Everquest or World of Warcraft, you know what I'm talking about), and social interactions with non-players become left on the wayside?

I don't wish to postulate that computer games are in and of themselves bad things: computer games have for years been an extension of other games functioning as learning and teaching tools, often without the user realising it. They teach decision making, visuo-spatial recognition, and a wide range of teamwork behaviours, they really do. But the same body of literature emerging from psychology about their merits also carries with it a darker set of observations. I'm not necessarily talking about violent computer games making violent people. While that is certainly on the table (sorry gamer kids, it really is), the weakened but still rationalised social features, the immersiveness and escapist quality that can endlessly stimulate many minds, indicate to me that as technology continues to advance in this area at a mind boggling rate, Nozick's machine might leave the realm of thought and actually pose us an applied ethics problem: possessing this machine, do we allow ourselves or others to use it? Especially knowing what we know from thought experiments in the past, and on the problems associated with addictive activities.

Thoughts?

Ethical DNA - what a load of shyte

I recently completed this online questionaire. I don't have time to go into the problems I have with it yet, in terms of surveys, questions etc etc. The thing that gets my goat the most is the term 'moral DNA', which really goes into reinforcing the folk conceptions of genetics.
For those of you who are interested in this type of stuff, check out Paul Griffith's site, in particular this article.
There is a stack of links to his publications on his site, and for anyone interested in genetics, in particular folk conceptions of genes and 'public understanding of science' type stuff, his work is pretty cool.

That is

A little lightening of the mood.

With all the killing of puppies that's been going on ( see below), I thought I'd record an event that happened today that made me smile and remember that, despite all these terrible things happening in the world, and the way that the business world loves jerking us around, etc., that there are still nice people around. So, I little back story will be needed, but bear with me.

I'm building a bike at the moment from some old parts, and I needed to deconstruct an old 3-cog chainring setup. It requires a tool that looks a bit like this, a tool which (until now) I did not have access to. So, I rock into a bike shop at lunchtime, and enquire about said chainring wrench (the above tool). The guy doesn't have one for sale, but lends me his, on the verbal agreement that I'd bring it back tomorrow.

It sounds like a small thing, but little things are important. That a person would be willing to lend me a specialty tool instead of forcing me to order one is fantastic. An added bonus? When I enquired as to where I could purchase a T25 torx key, he gave me one of his. For free. Not every day one gets gifted like this.

Its been a good day. For those out there nerdy in their pursuits, I invite you to observe this. The orchestra isn't great, but it is a bunch of non-pros playing. Still, fantastic.

I think what is missing from Rawls is a theory of being awesome.

Politicians and integrity

This topic could run on for ever, but I just read this rad thing on Victorian politicans. In particular, I would like to call your attention to this awesome factoid:

"The Government's reliance on the car came under fire in April when Premier John Brumby used a chauffeur-driven car for a 400-metre trip from Parliament House to 55 Collins Street — to sign an agreement to cut greenhouse emissions."

I don't know why, instead of getting angry about this, it just makes me feel warm inside and very smiley. Like my blood is made from puppies.

Anyone else get that feeling, or have I completely lost the plot?
Also, if anyone else finds such beautiful factoids about politicans and integrity, my eyes would like to look at them in order to maintain this PFB delusion (PFB being 'puppies-for-blood').

A brief follow up

Apparently, Qantas has something to answer for when it comes to the distribution of information. See here.